Three lung cancer symptoms – cough, dyspnea (shortness of breath), and pain – were analyzed using the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) quality of life questionnaire for lung cancer (QLQ-LC13). Results showed that a higher proportion of afatinib-treated patients had ≥10 point improvements in cough (67% vs. 60%; P=0.2444), dyspnea (64% vs. 50%; P=0.0103) and pain (59% vs. 48%; P=0.0513) compared with those treated with chemotherapy. Patients treated with afatinib also reported a delay in the worsening (time to deterioration) of their lung cancer-related symptoms – cough (HR=0.6; P=0.0072) and dyspnea (HR=0.68; P=0.0145) – compared with those treated with chemotherapy. The time to deterioration of pain was not significant between the treatment arms (HR=0.82; P=0.1913). Mean symptom scores over time significantly favored afatinib over chemotherapy for cough and dyspnea.

Health-related QoL was measured using the EORTC QLQ-C30 questionnaire, which evaluated global health status/QoL (overall well-being) in addition to physical, cognitive, role, social and emotional functioning. Of these six measures, patients treated with afatinib experienced improvements in their global health-related quality of life and physical, cognitive and role functioning compared to chemotherapy (P<0.05).